THE artistic director of the Edinburgh International Festival (EIF), Jonathan Mills, would like to use the site of the Royal Highland Show every year.
The Royal Highland Centre at Ingliston, which hosts Scotland's largest agricultural show, is the biggest venue of this year's festival.
For the first time, the EIF is staging three large shows – a Polish version of Macbeth, a modern version of My Fair Lady and a play by the Theatre du Soleil.
The trio have cost organisers an extra £490,000 and could attract nearly 9500 people.
Mr Mills believes the use of the venue can radically change the nature of what the festival can show every year, and indeed two of the three shows would be impossible to stage at traditional theatre spaces in the city.
TR Warszawa's 2008: Macbeth and Les Naufrages du Fol Espoir by the Theatre du Soleil require warehouse-style spaces to build their distinctive stages.
The Macbeth set is a mammoth almost touch the hall's roof.
The stage for Mein Faire Dame by Theatre Basel is too big to fit into the Festival Theatre.
Mr Mills said he is excited to have the 4500 sq ft of the Lowland Hall at his disposal – it was used before by the festival to stage an acclaimed version of Faust Silviu Purcarete in 2009 – and said he would like to see the site engaged every year for the festival, as long as funds were available.
Technicians are currently putting the stages and raked seating for the three shows into the vast space simultaneously, with each show transporting its own set to Edinburgh, including a two-floor apartment complex for Macbeth, a wide and deep stage for Les Naufrages, and a similarly large fixed set for Mein Faire Dame.
The venue will also have a restaurant for the casts and crew and a large bar and food for the audience.
All three shows will not run at the same time, but Macbeth and Mein Faire Dame will be possible to view in one day.
This year's shows at the site, which will be serviced by buses during the festival, have been funded by support from Creative Scotland, Edinburgh City Council and EventScotland.
Mr Mills said he was confident festival goers will leave the city centre to travel to the venue to see the shows.
"I'd like to believe we can use it every year, the fact that we can have shows here and have fostered a very good relationship with the owners of the hall, the Royal Highland Centre, all of that augurs well for it to be a very big part of the festival's future," Mr Mills said.
"We showed in 2009 with Faust that it can be done and I think people who see Macbeth, for example, will think it is absolutely splendid.
"I am not saying it would have be every year, but it should be a regular part of the festival, and it can be done because it has proven to be popular: but the shows have to be there, and suitable for the venue, rather than it being used for its own sake."
Macbeth runs from August 11 to 13, My Fair Lady runs fromAugust 14 to 18, and Les Naufrages from August 23 to 28.
"What we are trying to do is put on, in an attractive surroundings, three very big productions that would otherwise not be available to Edinburgh at a normal venue," Mr Mills added.
"This is not a building for us permanently, it is temporary.
"But it is, actually, a very cost- effective away of staging these three productions."
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